Nutmeg
by Oliviet
Summary: She stares after him as he wanders into his kitchen still talking about food. Maybe Meredith was right; 15 years later…he's a different man. He's a different man from when she met him four years ago even. She likes to think that she had something to do with it. Post-ep for Significant Others.


"How about I make you breakfast before you leave?"

She stares after him as he wanders into his kitchen still talking about food. Maybe Meredith was right; 15 years later…he's a different man. He's a different man from when she met him four years ago even. She likes to think that she had something to do with it.

But still, she stands there racking her brain for any personal information he's ever told her. She recalls him telling her this elaborate story about what got him "interested" in death. And then she recalls that that's just what it was, a story fabricated to avoid telling her the truth. Kate chews on her lower lip as she keeps thinking. There has to be something. She has to know something about him other than his preferences during sex, but then she remembers the nutmeg thing and realizes she doesn't even know how he likes his coffee. And coffee is their _thing_.

Kyra! She knew about Kyra. But would she know about her if her bridesmaid's case file hadn't landed on her desk? And she knew about Sofia simply because she too had wandered into her precinct. How could she know nothing about him when he knew some of the most intimate details of her life? Meredith was right all right, but not in the way that she had hoped.

"Kate?"

She refocuses her attention on him. He's holding a spatula, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Yeah sorry, I'm coming."

"Where'd you go? You seemed like you weren't very present there for a bit."

Kate sighs wandering over to the kitchen island and taking a seat across from him. She has to bring this up, doesn't she?

"All these years drinking coffee with you and you never think to tell me about the nutmeg thing?"

He laughs. "Oh well that just something between me and Meredith. Sometimes I just put it in there myself."

"But you could have told me. I'm fully capable of putting nutmeg in your coffee if that's the way you like it."

"I'm the one who brings _you_ a coffee every morning, remember?"

"But still, when we're at my place –"

"Kate, really don't worry about it. I like coffee just fine without nutmeg too."

She bites her lip, watching him pull out a frying pan. She should bring up his dad; see if he trusts her enough to give her a straight answer or if he plans to hide his past from her just like he did with Meredith.

"Doesn't it ever bother you that you don't know who your father is? I mean Sofia made it seem like she knew who he was and –."

Castle smirks. "Well that came out of nowhere. So how do you want your eggs?"

She retracts, hanging her head, her curls falling in front of her face. So there it is. Maybe she's not as special to him as she thought she was.

"What?" he asks.

"You've been to hell and back digging up answers about my mother's case and yet you won't even _try_ to find an answer about your father. You won't even talk to me about it."

"I was trying to help you –"

She shakes her head. "You're deflecting again."

"My mother raised me just fine on her own, so excuse me for not caring to discuss my dead beat of a father."

"But she doesn't even remember who he is, right? Maybe he doesn't even know that you exist. You can't call him a dead beat for not knowing."

"I don't want to talk about this." He moves to the fridge and takes out the carton of eggs.

"You never want to talk about anything."

"Excuse me?"

"You've written four books about me. You know some of the most intimate details about my life. I've shared things with you like that little stick guy I keep in my desk. And yet what I know about you couldn't even fill a pamphlet."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? Meredith said –"

"Oh well if Meredith said so, it must be true since you two are BFF's now."

"Castle –"

"My divorce with Meredith is none of your business."

She scoffs, glaring at him. "It is my business. I don't want us to end up the same way. You're supposed to learn from your mistakes, don't you know that?"

He cracks an egg over the frying pan, but doesn't say anything. This should not be upsetting her as much as it is. Apparently this is how he treats all of his relationships, but she thought that she was different. Sofia probably thought she was different too, being his muse and all. But Nikki is a main character…

"What about Gina?"

He looks up from the frying pan, but still doesn't say anything.

"Why did things end with Gina?"

Castle sighs. "We were just two different people. We fought all of the time."

"But you got back together with her."

"It was a mistake." He cracks another egg. "I hope scrambled is okay."

She nods, chewing on her lip again, willing him to say something, anything.

The eggs begin to sizzle under the heat and he sighs. "You know about Kyra and Sofia. That's personal stuff."

"Only because they were involved in our cases. That's not information you would have just offered up. That's like how you only know about Will because he was involved in that kidnapping case."

He goes back to not answering her as he moves to put bread in the toaster.

"Is it so wrong for me wanting to know you? For me wanting to reveal layers of the Castle onion?"

He puts down the spatula, both hands splaying out on the countertop.

"I told you about Christmas and how my mother used to put on the Nutcracker Suite for me and I let you listen to her memoir which had dozens of sordid details about my life."

"Yes, yes you did. But see how those things are focused on Martha and not you?"

He drags his eyes up to meet hers, exhaling a breath.

"You don't need to be so guarded, Castle. Not around me."

He finishes scrambling the eggs and puts them onto plates before they burn. He retrieves the toast and grabs some butter and jelly from the fridge. Castle brings them to her, walking around the island to sit on the other stool next to her.

"Don't you trust me?" she asks, barely above a whisper.

He looks into his cup of coffee as he starts speaking. "As long as I don't know my father, he can be whoever I want him to be. A baseball player, a famous director, a senator –"

Kate cringes.

"Okay maybe not a senator, at least not Bracken. But the moment I find out who he is, a drug dealer, an alcoholic…Bracken, that dream is lost. I've spent my whole life making up stories about him. He was the first story I ever wrote. It won me a writing contest in elementary school. I can't…I don't need him. My family of redheads, maybe minus Meredith and plus you, is all I need to make me happy. So no, I don't want to think about the fact that Sofia might have known him. Because she, my only lead, is dead. I have no evidence, no proof, no names, absolutely nothing to go off of. So I pretend he's Steven Spielberg and that I'm somehow related to that hot lesbian chick on Grey's Anatomy."

"I'm pretty sure only her character is a lesbian."

"Well whatever, we're related. I don't need closure the same way you do with your mother. But then again, no one has murdered Steven."

Kate places her hand on top of his, stoking the back of his hand with her thumb.

"When I was nine I broke my arm falling off of my bike. It was the first time I tried riding it without training wheels. And yes it took me that long to try because I was afraid of the damn thing. Turns out I had good reason to be. I told everyone at school that I had fallen out of a tree that I had been climbing because I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth."

She squeezes his hand, starting to say something when he cuts her off.

"I had my first kiss when I was 13. It was awful. Some buddies of mine had told me that girls really like it when you use tongue. But it was my first kiss, so clearly I had no clue what I was doing. Poor Tiffany Owens got all slobbered over on her front porch. Needless to say, she did not call me back."

Kate laughs shaking her head at the image. "You've gotten much better with your tongue usage."

"Well I'd hope so by the way I make you moan when I use it."

She gives him that small embarrassed smile as he squeezes her hand back.

"We should eat before it gets cold," he suggests, letting go of his grip on her. He picks up his fork and smiles at her.

"Thank you," she tells him.

He nods digging into his eggs. She joins him and they eat in silence. He clears their plates when they're done and then moves to stand in front of her at the island again, taking her hands in his.

"You're different, Kate. Different than all of the others. I've never fought for anybody as hard as I've fought for you. And I'm not going to lose you. I'll give you enough back stories to write five books, if that's what it takes. I do trust you; I trust you with my life. And I want you to know that."

She gets up from her stool and moves over to him, lacing her hands behind his back and burying her face into his neck.

"I love you too, Castle," she breathes against his skin.

He looks down at her, stunned, his mouth forming into a huge grin. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He kisses her, making sure to use tongue. After a little bit, he starts to lick her like poor Tiffany and she laughs and pushes him away, wiping at her face.

"That poor girl," she laughs, shaking her head. "You probably traumatized her for life."

"She did go around telling people I kissed like a dog."

"Probably because you did!"

Castle shrugs, drawing her back into the circle of his arms. "If you insist on going home, can I at least come over tonight? I need to start making things up to you, especially since you love me and all now."

Kate scrunches up her face, pretending to think about it. "I suppose I'd be okay with that."

"Good. And you should feel special. Because the only person who knows the truth about my arm is my mother – the doctor got the tree story too – and Tiffany is the only person who knows about that kiss, other than the people that she told… You're amongst an elite group of people there."

She leans her forehead against his, letting their noses touch. "You're the only person who knows a lot of my secrets too, Castle. And I wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
